New Delhi: The Centre on Friday held a high-level review meeting with authorities from all states with a special emphasis on 11 states and Union Territories reporting a “very high rise” in daily cases of coronavirus disease and related deaths. The central government listed five tools that the states must follow to curb the spread of the viral disease, said an official statement.
Five Tools
- Vaccination
- Enhanced testing
- Strict containment
- Prompt contact tracing
- Enforcement of COVID appropriate behaviour
States that have contributed 90% of COVID cases in the last fortnight
Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Chandigarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Haryana.
The meeting, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba advised the state government of Maharashtra to take up immediate and high effective measures to ensure containment of active cases and daily deaths.
The government also told the states to increase testing continuously to ensure that positivity comes down to 5% or less than 5%. It advised them to focus on ensuring RT-PCR tests comprise 70% of the total test, reduce waiting time of test results with regular review with testing labs, use Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) as a screening test in densely populated areas and where fresh clusters are emerging and ensure that all symptomatic RAT negatives are mandatorily subjected to RT-PCR tests, the PIB statement said.
